POSCO enhances corporate value via environmental management.

(From The Korea Herald)

Following is the fourth of a five-part special report on POSCO on its second anniversary of privatization. - Ed.

By Park Sang-soo Staff reporter With rising global concerns over increasing environmental problems such as pollution and natural resources depletion, global corporate responsibility to the environment is becoming more important than ever before.

POSCO Co., the world's largest steelmaker in terms of production capacity, has been working tirelessly to not only become a globally competitive company, but also to clean up the environment and solve local environmental problems.

POSCO's environmental policy vision is to "enhance corporate value through environmental management." To achieve this, POSCO considers the environmental impact of all their products and manufacturing processes in order to better comply with various international environmental standards, and recommendations based on their environmental performance.

In maximizing its market value and environmental efforts, POSCO regularly focuses on five areas in improving their environmental management activities.

The first area of improvement is in using resources and energy more efficiently. The second area is in being able to make more effective strategic decisions regarding environmental issues. The third area of improvement is to take a proactive approach in solving environmental issues by considering the whole "life cycle" of products and processes, and by maintaining consistent monitoring activities. The fourth area involves improving the "right to know" of not only shareholders, and investors, but also members of the community at large with regards to environmental issues. And lastly, the fifth area is improving the supply-chain management system to ensure that steel products are produced and managed in a way that is as environmentally friendly as possible.

Environmental policy and objectives Environmental preservation has always been a tenant of POSCO's management philosophy. The company has established and enacted a variety of measures to prevent pollution by producing steel products in a way that is as environmentally friendly as possible.

In view of the global effort to protect the environment, POSCO has instituted …